6 Steps for a Successful Website

So you’ve just launched and completed your website development process, but now you’re not sure what comes next. Unfortunately, it’s not over. But this is not a bad thing! As the web evolves so can you and your business. If anything, the internet is empowerment to you and your message. It shouldn’t be a chore but enjoyable. It should be fun because there are so many ways you can take your busines now that you’re online! Really, you’re ready to go in a brand new direction and meet brand new customers from all over the world and you can now work much smarter with your marketing efforts. But many find themselves asking questions such as which direction should you go in first? What if we do it wrong? What if our website is not received as well as we thought or what if no one vists our website!?!

Don’t panic, success online is not as hard as some make it out to be. Over the years we have come to realise that in order for your website to be successful and do well online there are six steps you MUST take:

Step 1) Make Sure People Can Find Your Website

People spend a lot of time and effort getting their website online and can’t wait to share it with the world. The next question they ask is now what? Well, it’s important that people can find your site via search engines (SEO), social media, reciprocal links, word of mouth e-mail marketing, business literature and other means. In order to be a success online, you need to be found. Afterall if no-one visits your website what’s the point of having one? This means you need more tools than just your website alone and you need to work continuously on your online marketing efforts. This requires work, but the Internet is the number one platform which delivers the greatest return on investment especially when done right.

Step 2) You Must Tell People What They Can Achieve on Your Webite

People need to know what they can achieve on your website. If they go to the site and can’t instantly see what they can achieve whilst there then they will switch off and click off! They have to know a benefit to them and for it to serve their need by visiting you. This is why information and content is still king, but you need to make it easy to understand, use and meet your visitors needs.

Step 3) Make Your Website Simple to Use

Now that people know what to accomplish on your website, you need to provide the steps in order for them to be guided to achieving the benefit. Don’t make it difficult, make it as easy as possible and as obvious as possible. People don’t have a lot of time, so don’t waste it with poor navigation and over complicated steps on your site. Ultimately you either want them to buy from you directly there and then or contact you – so make it simple and accessible across multiple devices with responsive design.

Step 4) Give Visitors a Reason to Come Back

It’s important that people have a reason to come back to your website. If you don’t then they won’t return. Research shows it can be five to nine visits to a website before they would even buy anything you have to offer. If you can’t get people back to your site then their first visit will be their last.

Step 5) Get Visitors to Convert

This doesn’t mean getting them to change religion, it merely means getting them to either buy from your site forcing them to action something such as signing up to your newsletter or following you on Twitter. You need to make this process obvious too and you need to have KPI metrics in place so you can monitor your websites performance! Why? Well given that the web is always evolving, if you can’t monitor performance then you can’t make incremental change to keep up with your clients and customers patterns and requirements.

Step 6) Seek Referrals

Get website referrals from people wherever and whenever you can. Even a simple recipricol link could have a profound impact on your website and it’s page rank for example in Google. You can do this in a number of ways such as using share features, embedded link backs, affiliate marketing and by promoting your content on forums and social media. Viral marketing as seen through the likes of Twitter trends can be very powerful, but it doesn’t just happen, it has to be earned. But there’s no reason why you can’t make the most of it. Start today!

The list doesn’t stop here though but it will get you going. You need constant continuous imrpvovement in order to be a success for the long term regarding any website development. But with tenacity and the right platforms in place, it’s not as arduous a task as it may seem.

Further Reading

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